Convicted rapist James A. Adams, a suspect in a 2012 Cranston killing, sentenced for probation offense

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Jul 20, 2013 at 12:01 AM

CRANSTON — A convicted rapist suspected of murdering a young woman a year ago has been sentenced to prison for violating his probation.During a five-day span while he was out on probation last year,...

Amanda Milkovits Journal Staff Writer amandamilkovits

CRANSTON — A convicted rapist suspected of murdering a young woman a year ago has been sentenced to prison for violating his probation.

During a five-day span while he was out on probation last year, James A. Adams, 32, was accused of raping two women, in Providence and Johnston, and assaulting a woman in Cranston — outside the same garage on Farmington Avenue where the decomposed body of Mary S. Grier was found on July 20, 2012.

Those charges, and a report that Adams wasn’t attending sex-offender treatment, led to Adams being sentenced last month to serve 11 years at the Adult Correctional Institutions for violating his probation. That’s where he has been held since his arrest on July 24, 2012, when the Cranston police announced they were seeking him as a “person of interest” in Grier’s killing.

Cranston police Col. Marco Palombo Jr. called Adams “a dangerous predator.” The crimes he is accused of committing in a short span of time are “evidence of predatory behavior and an escalation of violence,” Palombo said.

Palombo calls Adams a suspect in Grier’s slaying. The chief declined comment on how Grier and Adams knew each other, or how she ended up inside the detached garage at 391 Farmington Ave.

However, at least two people have told the police that Adams hung around there: his older brother Jesse, who has accused Adams of threatening him, and a woman who says Adams tried to force her into the garage at gunpoint last summer.

She told the police that Adams hit her in the head with the gun, but she escaped. She didn’t report anything to the police until after she saw Adams’ picture on TV last July in connection with Grier’s killing. Then she went to the station, telling Cranston detectives that she’d known Grier and that Adams had “tried to do it to me too,” according to her witness statement.

She picked out Adams’ photo as the man who attacked her, writing in her witness statement: “I remembered the cold eyes.”

Adams had just turned 18 in 1999 when he was charged with domestic assault. That was the beginning of his adult criminal record.

His mental health and substance-abuse problems have been factors in his criminal cases, which often involved assaults on women or his brother. Adams has been assessed at the Forensic Unit at Slater Hospital for his competency to stand trial. He’s been ordered into a batterers’ intervention program and substance-abuse counseling, but he often skipped the meetings, according to probation reports over the years.

In March 2005, Adams was wanted for skipping his domestic violence counseling when the Warwick police charged him with raping a woman he’d known since childhood. The young woman told the police that Adams had threatened to kill her if she reported him.

Adams was out on probation at the time for assaulting his girlfriend. However, he hadn’t visited the probation office in months, and he didn’t enroll in the court-ordered counseling, according to a probation report.

Adams was convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to prison. He was released on probation in October 2010, ordered to register as a sex offender and comply with the terms of his probation. He registered at his mother’s house in Warwick.

In an interview with The Providence Journal last summer, Adams’ brother Jesse said he noticed Adams spiraling down and called the probation officer. His brother wasn’t living where he was registered, he was using drugs and threatening him, Jesse Adams said.

Clinician reports noted that James Adams was resisting treatment, skipping some of his group therapy sessions at The Counseling and Psychotherapy Center, according to court records. Adams attempted suicide in early May 2012. By the end of the month, Adams stopped showing up, according to a presentment report by his probation officer, Margaret Olivier.

On July 9, 2012, Olivier sought a warrant for Adams for a probation violation hearing.

Adams was still out and about when Grier’s body was found in the Farmington Avenue garage 11 days later. Neighbors had called the police about a foul odor coming from the cluttered garage, and officers found the former Boston woman’s remains.

As the media broadcast the gruesome discovery in the garage, Jesse Adams recognized the building and knew his brother hung out there. He called the police.

So did the woman who told police that she’d been attacked there on June 29.

Adams was arrested four days later as he fled his father’s apartment at Charlesgate North in Providence with a pellet gun. Other women came forward and said Adams had raped and robbed them — one on June 24 in Johnston, and another in Providence on June 25.

All of those charges are still pending.

Meanwhile, a year after Grier’s body was found, the Cranston police continue the murder investigation. “We don’t believe he’s the only person who had knowledge of the activities in the garage,” said Palombo.

No one has been charged in the death of Grier.

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